


Between the Shadow and the Soul

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: The Hour
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Feelings, Post-Canon, feel free to ignore this idea, it's one possibility of many for them, journalists in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 00:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11909391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Scene: 1960, a reasonably charming flat. Freddie and Bel are together because they don't know how to be anything else. They defend their relationship jealously, while pretending it's an axiom of the universe. Maybe it is.





	Between the Shadow and the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been mostly written for over a year, and was recently polished up to go with a donated title: Between the Shadow and the Soul. The title is taken from one of Neruda's sonnets:
> 
> _I love you as one loves certain obscure things,  
>  secretly, between the shadow and the soul._
> 
> My hypothesis here is that Bel continues to work as producer for _The Hour_ , and that Freddie may work as a freelance researcher. Her core passion -- as he very well knows -- is journalism. His is her.

They burn too many lamps in the evenings. Bel finds herself itemizing the habits of their life as they do the supper dishes. She washes (she’s more careful.) He dries (he’s less impatient; he likes being told what to do.) He always touches her hand, as if by accident, when handing back the dish towel to be hung up. She always gives him an indulgent _moue_ , as if surprised. The living room is ablaze with light: the branching dual shade beside the sofa; the two-tiered lamps, seeming too large for the desk under the bookshelves at which Freddie settles himself to work. Papers and books are stacked and propped open about him. He would not know how to work with them tidy, she thinks. She sits with her stocking feet tucked under her (tonight, he does not tease her about her undergraduate habits.) She holds the latest Muriel Spark. Tonight, for once, she does not read it.

This is their life, she thinks, a domesticity that they handle carefully, as though they were afraid of it shattering between their hands. And they surround themselves with lighted lamps like children afraid of the dark.

“Freddie.”

“Mm.”

“Freddie, I need to talk to you.” She has lowered the book, holding it in both hands.

“Listening.”

She is silent for a moment; his pencil scratches over the page. “Freddie…”

“Yes, I think you should run the Chatterley story.” He puts down the pencil, turns to face her over the arm of the chair. “If you think a dress suits you, you should buy it; I’d love to see you in chartreuse. Actually, maybe not chartreuse, but…”

“Freddie, I’m serious.”

“I will always let you choose the wine in future.” Freddie smiles, levers himself out of the chair, and crosses to her. “And no,” he says, “I will not use a cane.” He sits down and takes her hands in his. “It makes me feel old.” He turns her hands palm upwards, stroking them as if to probe for damage. 

“Freddie,” says Bel, not ungently, “shut up.” She finds herself staring at the long hands caressing her own. She takes a deep breath. “I need to talk to you about Gilbert.”

His brow furrows momentarily, but his hands do not pause in their explorations. “Gilbert?”

“Or Maud.” She sees him start to form a question; and then, as he meets her eyes, sees his realization. There is a heartbeat’s silence. 

“Bel, that's—” He draws a shaken breath. “Bel, I can’t pretend I’m not pleased. I am. I am; I could love Gilbert-or-Maud extravagantly, even though they’d probably think we were quite hopeless. But I loved you first. And if… if this isn’t what you want…”

“No,” says Bel, finding herself suddenly on the verge of tears, suddenly more certain than she had dreamed she could be. “No, it is—I do. I want this to be possible.” She laces her hands around the back of his neck. “I want this.” She pulls him down to her and kisses him before taking off her glasses. 

He looks up from unbuttoning her blouse to ask: “You’re really happy?”

Bel smiles into the scarred face of the man she loves. “Ecstatic.”


End file.
